<p>I'm going in as a Bio major hoping to go to medical school. I've narrowed my schools down to villanova and rowan. Rowan gave me a huge scholarship, but I still feel like villanova is just a great school! Any opinions on both schools?</p>
<p>Did you visit both schools? I visited Rowan basically just because of the low price, but did not like it at all.</p>
<p>If money is tight then Rowan may be the best option. However, medical school is becoming increasingly hard to get into. If you want to get accepted to a top 20 med school, your best bet would be at villanova. The bio field at nova is stronger and the academics are much stronger than at Rowan. the avg sat score at villanova is 200 points higher than at Rowan and the health committee and advisers at nova (I would imagine) are much more experienced with getting students into good medical schools and research.</p>
<p>Biology is one of the most competitive programs at Villanova , be prepared for a major work load and to be challenged.</p>
<p>i actually haven’t been to villanova yet. i’m going on saturday. but i just have a feeling that i’m going to fall in love with it! i liked rowan because the people were nice but like Nova2011 said, villanova is just more prestigious and i don’t want to cheat myself out of a better education! i’m so confused :(</p>
<p>Yeah, I agree with Nova2011. I don’t want to sound like a jerk, but my honest opinion of Rowan when I visited it was that it was just a step up from a community college. The buildings for the most part were decently nice and the people there were very friendly. However, it just had this feel that most of the kids went there solely because of the cheap cost and didn’t seem like a very academically stimulating place. Have fun on saturday, it’s going to be a day packed full of stuff to do. I’m ready for the invasion of campus.</p>
<p>Rowan is a local NJ college that started out as a college for teachers. It is not very challenging and really is for local kids…it is steps down from the flagship state school, Rutgers and serves as a safe school to Rutgers. Villanova is first rate college with a great campus, great college spirit, highly ranked programs; there is just no real comparison. Rowan should be a safe school to Villanova but if money is your bottome line, you will get a decent education at Rowan, but it is not going to give you the opportunities and the recognition Villanova will.</p>
<p>that is how i feel! i have a lot of friends that go to/are going to Rowan and i just feel like villanova will get me farther in terms of what med/grad schools i apply to and just the overall education i receive. i’m just so scared to dig a huge financial hole for myself and the finaid office at nova hasn’t gotten back to me. my mom called and they said it would take 2 weeks which brings me to April 30, the day before deposit deadlines. if i have to take out a loan for say 15000 a year, even close to 20k, i will but if it’s a price that sounds unreasonable idk…thank you so much for your responses!</p>
<p>Rowan just opened a medical school. Just saying…
It may give you an edge to getting acceptrd if you attend there as an undergrad. </p>
<p>Also plenty of top students go to Rowan, especially for their top rated Engineering program. They are getting the same opportunites as other top schools. Ex: one senior we spoke to has secured a job with Lockheed Martin and is also going to Cornell for grad school on free ride.</p>
<p>15k in loans shouldn’t deter you if you are a highly motivated student…i.e, the job you get because of attending Nova will definitely make up the 15k in loans. However, if you do go to Villanova, take out loans, and then arent able to keep up academically and cant get into medical school or a good career, then the financial hole might be trouble some.
Although Rowan may have a few of those students who stand out and get good career opportunities, most will be making 15-20k less than Villanova grads.</p>
<p>Thank you, Wikipedia, for some background:</p>
<p>Rowan University is a public university in Glassboro, New Jersey, USA with a satellite campus in Camden, New Jersey. The school was founded in 1923 as Glassboro Normal School on a twenty-five acre site donated by the town. The school became New Jersey State Teachers College at Glassboro in the 1930s, and Glassboro State College in 1958. Starting in the 1970s, it grew into a multi-purpose institution, adding programs in business, communications, and engineering.</p>
<p>It was renamed Rowan College of New Jersey in 1992, after Henry Rowan and his wife Betty gave $100 million to the school, at the time the largest gift to a public college. It became Rowan University on March 21, 1997, when it won approval for university status from the New Jersey Commission on Higher Education. In the fall of 2012, Cooper Medical School of Rowan University will open at the university’s Camden campus; it is the first public medical school in New Jersey not associated with the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey.</p>
<p>Controversial plans have been proposed by a state advisory committee for a merger of Rowan and the Camden campus of Rutgers University. The plan has met with objections from Rutgers</p>
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<p>This statement is just so ridiculous! For a 19 year old, you know absolutely nothing about how the real world works. Do you think employers have some lookup table that says you get this much if you went to this school? </p>
<p>The school you graduate from has absolutely nothing to do with the salary you will make. Except for maybe finance and medicine, nobody really cares where you went to school, and that includes your employer and your coworkers. If you are a motivated student who does well in school, you will have the same opportunities for success (and salary) as anybody else. You are kidding yourself if you believe otherwise.</p>
<p>Also, what makes you think Villanova graduates are so special that they deserve to get $15-$20K more than anybody else?</p>
<p>^Look up payscale college salaries…the median salary for Villanova grads at mid-career level is $96,000…I doubt Rowan grads are making that. Also you seem completely clueless about employers…employers seek people who have had internships, research in the field (this include pharmaceutical companies, medical, dental, business etc.) and so on…if Villanova can offer better research opportunities and internships then it will lead to a higher paying job. </p>
<p>Also employers definitely know certain schools and if the general perception is positive about its graduates then they will continue to higher those grads for good positions…i.e Top law firms, business firms in Philly love hiring Villanova grads because they have dealt with them before and find them as good bets. </p>
<p>i am clearly not kidding myself. Do you think Harvard grads make the same amount of money as Rowan grads??? By your logic it would make no difference (as long as u didnt pursue medicine, dentistry, or finance) to pick Harvard over a community college…do not be completely ludicrous busybeemom.</p>
<p>Nova2011, for someone who is yet to start his career, you make some pretty bold statements. Meanwhile, I have been in the professional workforce for more years than you’ve been alive, so I think I know a little more than you about employers and how things work. </p>
<p>I am only trying to enlighten you with the facts. If you choose to be ignorant now, you will just find out on your own eventually. And yes there are many instances where Harvard grads make the same or less money than grads from a state school like Rowan or community college, or even no college at all. These are the facts; believe them or not; like them or not.</p>
<p>Regarding payscale, I am way past Villanova mid-career salary, and I went to a virtually unknown state school. Meanwhile my neighbor from Villanova makes maybe $50K mid-career. Just one example that things aren’t always black and white like you think. School is just one very small factor. I know that’s hard for you to believe, since school is all you know right now, but you will remember this conversation in the years to come, and you will know that I was right.</p>
<p>Please don’t mind Nova2011, he has “I wish I could have gone somewhere other than Villanova” syndrome and finds it necessary to bash anyone who suggests that Villanova might not be right by providing less-than-compelling reasons to try support Nova’s supremacy. I just wish he had gotten in to BC, Notre Dame, Georgetown or UPenn–none of this would be happening now…</p>
<p>By the way, to the OP, I sit on an admissions committee for a top 5 medical school–I can assure you that Villanova does have more name recognition and prestige in academia than Rowan, and although GPA and MCAT scores are critical components of the medical school admissions process, the prestige of the college you attend DOES make a difference in many admission committee members’ eyes. So Nova2011, interestingly, is sort of correct. I cannot speak about Rowan’s premedical program and advising as I have never come across a Rowan applicant to medical school.</p>
<p>@Busybeemom…you are simply looking at a handful of graduates…I am talking about averages. Of course there are people out there who have never taken a college class in their lives and are millionaires. However, if you look at Villanova alumni, Georgetown alumni, Harvard alumni, whatever, you will find that they are much more successful in monetary ways than Rowan alumni…those are just the facts. I am happy you have done so well in life, but I know many people who are unemployed with their community college, state college or no college experience. How can you act like college has no effect on employment?</p>